Drowning Accident at Carroll ISD Pool Kills Teen
According to KHOU, a Texas teen died during a team practice in Southlake early Monday morning.
Details of the Southlake Drowning Incident
Elise Cerami, age 13 and a freshman at Carroll High School, drowned during swim practice for the North Texas Nadadores swim team. Elise was pulled out of the pool, unconscious, during practice just before 7 a.m. The practice was at the Carroll ISD Aquatics Center in Southlake, Texas.
At the time of the accident, about 24 members of the North Texas Nadadores swim team were practicing. According to a district spokeswoman, one of the coaches attempted CPR on Elise; however, she was unresponsive when the paramedics hurried her to the hospital. She was first taken to Baylor Regional Hospital in Grapevine, but then taken to Cook Children’s Medical Center.
Elise’s father, David Cerami, released a statement, “Elise was doing what she loved to do – what she was passionate about, she loves the NTN family; she loves being a Dragon. The support has just been overwhelming. We send our best wishes to Coach Bill for a full recovery, and thank him, all the other students and staff who helped respond and do everything they could to try to help and save Elise.”
On the same Monday morning, a boy only a year old drowned in a Fort Worth apartment pool, and on Sunday night a four-year-old boy drowned in Highland Village.
According to Winnie King of Cook Children’s Medical Center, fifty-five kids were affected by near drowning or drowning just last year. In response to all the drownings, medical staff at Cook Children’s Medical Center launched an educational campaign last year. Unfortunately, this medical staff has still treated eleven near drownings just this month, and lost one child.
Cook Children’s Medical Center and Forth Worth Firefighters are working together to put sings up at the pools in order to encourage adults and parents to focus on the children while they are anywhere near the water.
The Carroll ISD Aquatics Center will be closed until Wednesday, at the very least. The district has also canceled a summer swim meet that was supposed to be held on Wednesday.
Drowning Statistics
According to the Texas Drowning Prevention Alliance:
- From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States.
- Drowning is the second leading cause of death in children ages 1 to 14 years, more than one in five fatal drowning victims are children ages 14 and younger.
- Drowning resulted in more deaths among 1- to 4-year olds than any other cause except birth defects. Incidents in bathtubs accounted for approximately 10% of fatal and non-fatal drowning and were most common among children ages 4 and younger.
- About one in five people who die from drowning are children 14 and younger. For every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.
- More than 50% of drowning victims treated in emergency departments (EDs) require hospitalization or transfer for further care (compared with a hospitalization rate of about 6% for all unintentional injuries). These nonfatal drowning injuries can cause severe brain damage that may result in long-term disabilities such as memory problems, learning disabilities, and permanent loss of basic functioning
